New York City rapper, Yung Esckimo released the live performance version of "The Code" in partnership with Major Stage today. Recorded in Major Stage’s NYC studio in November, Esckimo captivates the audience with a performance in attire that aptly matches his name— iced out in jewelry and wearing a winter jacket.
“The Code” (Major Stage Live) is available everywhere now. Watch the performance HERE.
With “The Code,” Esckimo continues to emphasize his hustle mentality and the success he’s had on his own. “N***as try to pull me down but I came even stronger / N***as tried to stop my grind but I went even harder / And I done took so many L’s, that sh*t don’t even bother,” he raps.
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Yung Esckimo fell in love with music at 9 years old.
That was the same age he bought his first album, 50 Cent’s debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. That was Esckimo’s aha moment—when he really fell in love with music and felt encouraged to rap.
“I would perform in the mirror, memorize my lyrics, and rap them at lunch at school,” he recalls.
Esckimo grew up all over Uptown Manhattan: Washington Heights, Harlem, and Dyckman. He remembers the various neighborhoods as being “hostile.” He continues, “You either gotta get it or you don't; you hustle or you starved type of environment.”
Music was a salve for him during that time—but the hustle mentality was strong. Before his music career, he was known as Escko to his friends. Around 2018, he was helping to develop another artist, which is when he realized that instead of investing in someone else, he should support himself. He then flipped that name into his current moniker adding ‘Mo’ at the end, “‘Cause I’m really the coldest in the city,” he says.
What’s really kept him going, though, has been seeing other people make it out of his neighborhood.
“What made me take it seriously was Cardi B and other artists from my area who took off from music. Once I seen them do it, it was a reality that it could happen,” he says. “You see Jay-Z and Biggie Smalls but they not from where I'm from. New York might be small, but it's big to us. So when I seen people that I spoke to on the regular make it in hip-hop, actually get paid, and live a life from it, I said, ‘Okay, I can do it too.’”
Esckimo takes pride in making music that is authentic to his life. “We're not just rapping it, we’re living it,” he says.
“I feel like my music is really motivational music, inspiring music,” he continues. “It’s definitely going to put you in the mindset. If you don't want to get up and go to work in the morning, it's going to make you want to get up. If you are in the gym and you tired, it’s going to make you want to run that extra mile. If you broke and you standing on the block, it's definitely gonna make you want to go get some money.”
Those sentiments are reflected in his debut offering Maybach & Millions, which arrived in November 2022. On the song, “Never Broke Again,” Esckimo recalls the times he lost it all, but picked himself back up again. “And I just put away another half of mill / I’m in the streets looking like I got a deal / And when I lost it all I ain’t know how to feel / I put my cleats on and then I hit the field,” he raps. In another project cut, “Myself,” he waxes poetic on his independent success over a menacing bassline.
Next, he’s gearing up for his next project Blue Magic, which is set to drop this fall. Yung Esckimo is also looking forward to building a platform for artists in his city with his label SCAM Inc., which stands for “Success Comes After Manifestation.”
“A lot of these artists have a story that’s relatable. They also came from nothing. Those are real artists that I can relate to, that inspire me to do music.”